The Fair Trade Big Breakfast Swap

Breakfast - The most important meal of the day?

We all know the theory. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. But in practice? Not a chance. Not in our house anyway. How can the most important meal of the day happen first thing in the morning?

That’s all well and good for that other breed – “morning people”. But for people like me who crawl out of bed at the last possible moment (and sometimes beyond that) and are an embarrassment to all women who take their domestic role seriously at all times, then breakfast is best eaten alone – preferably after everyone else has left the house.

Actually, breakfast cereal is really important in our house – so much so, that each family member gets to choose the cereal on their birthday. Fights have broken out over who has eaten the last bowl of a favourite cereal and everyone wakes extra early on a Wednesday in the knowledge that eight new boxes of cereal have arrived and are waiting to be opened. And I guess breakfast cereal is just as important to the people who make it. Take GeoMuesli from Traidcraft for example. The new range , which has three fantastic flavours – Mixed Berry, Fruit & Nut, and Exotic Fruit , is made from delicious global mixes of fair trade ingredients sourced from seven countries and across three continents -raisins from Chile and South Africa, almonds from the mountains of Pakistan, Brazil nuts from Brazil (never!) and Indian sourced rice crispies with a base of British oat and wheat cereals. So fair trade communities all over the world are benefiting, seeing improvements, planning for the future because of what we put in our bowl at breakfast time.

A Fairtrade Breakfast

This Fairtrade Fortnight, we at Ethicalsuperstore have decided to go for a Big Breakfast Swap and have got together a hamper of fair trade breakfast goodies to encourage you to join us in making breakfast the most important meal of the day in every way. Swap your normal breakfast for fair trade coffee, tea, muesli, breakfast bars and marmalade and use the Cafedirect mug to reinforce your intentions. You can always top up your fairtrade breakfast selection with hot chocolate, bananas, sugar, honey, chocolate spread and jam – breakfast will never be the same again!

The other necessity at our breakfast table apart from food and drink is reading matter. Brought up on the back of cereal packets, my children cannot eat breakfast without something to read. This is usually what is nearest to hand – a National Geographic magazine, a car manual, a supermarket bill, whatever….so I plan to swap our breakfast reading matter for Fairtrade Fortnight by printing out producer stories (the Cafedirect and Fairtrade Foundation websites are a good place to start). I can leave them strategically placed the night before on the table and will not even have to get up any earlier for my plan to fall into place. Reading thought-provoking accounts of how lives have been changed for producers of fair trade breakfast products will remind us of why we bought into fair trade in the first place. We will know the positive impact eating a fair trade breakfast has not only on ourselves but on the wider world.

It’s time to wake up to fair trade. Why don’t you join us in the Big Breakfast Swap for Fairtrade Fortnight? Who knows, it could turn into a lifetime swap!

Photo via Flickr: Adams Inn